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“Alienation is the precise and correctly
applied word for describing the major social problem in Britain today.” Jimmy
Reid’s words have been on my mind a lot lately. The “today” he was referring to
was 1972. But the Glaswegian dock worker’s analysis applies as much in 2016.

“People feel alienated by society.” He
said, in his widely acclaimed speech on accepting the Rectorship of Glasgow
University: “In some intellectual circles it is treated almost as a new
phenomenon. It has, however, been with us for years. What I believe is true is
that today it is more widespread, more pervasive than ever before. Let me right
at the outset define what I mean by alienation. It is the cry of men who feel
themselves the victims of blind economic forces beyond their control. It’s the
frustration of ordinary people excluded from the processes of decision-making.
The feeling of despair and hopelessness that pervades people who feel with
justification that they have no real say in shaping or determining their own
destinies.”

The
alienation in Britain in 2016 is so ubiquitous it can go unseen. Like the air
pollution which kills thousands in our cities or the gravity which stops us
floating away, it shapes and can end our lives, but we never see and rarely
notice it. It is everywhere, it feels endless. And it’s absolutely key, I
think, to understanding what has gone on with the EU referendum.

Since
Jimmy Reid gave his speech, our economy has financialised and globalised even
more. And this means that the forces which shape our communities and our lives
are financial and global. Forty years ago, the miners in Doncaster were
exploited, but they could see their exploiters in front of them, and had a
union through which they could organise and fight back. Their children, the
people Anthony Barnett and I spoke
to this week, don’t have the same direct experience of their own collective
power, nor those against whom they might mobilise.

Infuriated
by being trapped in a stifling present, they see the referendum as the only
lever they have been offered. Will it open the door to a better future? Most
Leave voters we spoke to didn’t think it would. Most thought nothing could
change. But why not give it a try?

That
is why, whatever the result today, millions of British people will have voted
to leave the EU in a mass rebellion against the leaders of parties with 98.6%
of MPs. That simple fact is extraordinary, and should shake British political
debate to its foundations.

Whatever the result today, millions of British people will have voted
to leave the EU in a mass rebellion against the leaders of parties with 98.6%
of MPs.

The
irony, of course, is that the EU is in part an attempt to give us some modicum
of democratic governance of those forces of globalisation. This morning, I laid
out the openDemocracyUK front page. At
the top, there are two debates – a
video of Steve Hilton and Paul Hilder, and a
podcast of Caroline Lucas and John Hilary. Below that, there are ten
articles arguing the case for each of Remain and Leave.

On the
Leave side are a number of people whose opinions I have often quoted and looked
to on other questions. Thousands of miles from the explicit racism of thugs
like Nigel Farage and Zac Goldsmith, thoughtful and committed democrats Joe Guinan
and Thomas Hanna write compellingly and in vivid detail about the impossibility
of securing the
reforms to the EU the left would want. The excellent Olly Huitson,
until recently my co-editor, shows the complicity of the EU in forcing
neoliberalism on the continent.
Ellen Engelstad shows how well the Norwegian
model works.

Likewise,
many have pointed to long lists of specific failures of the EU. Harry Blain,
for example, has written well on the failures
of EU environmental policy, and pointed to the swarm of
lobbyists working daily to ensure that it continues to fail. Enrico Tortolano
makes a compelling trade unionist case
against the EU.

In
their criticisms, they are all broadly right, I think. But ultimately, I
find myself convinced, if less enthusiastically than him, by the piece
written by my brother, Gilbert: Specifically, as he puts it:
“Compared to its obvious peers, the EU wins hands down. Where
is the NAFTA parliament, for example? Which specific political assembly exists
to hold the WTO to account?”

In his
article, Olly strolls directly onto this
turf: “The idea that
Britain could not trade with the EU is possibly the biggest nonsense of the
Remain campaign. Of course we would have a trade deal, we are a big economy and
a big importer of EU goods: we could join the EEA, EFTA, or simply strike
bilateral agreements.”

To
vote to leave the EU is not to leave behind the forces of globalisation which
are magnifying the alienation of the people of Doncaster and thousands of
others across the world. It is to take a step away from the only attempt in
human history to build an interstate architecture with some direct
democratic accountability, and replace it with one with no democratic
accountability. It is not to escape the brute power of Angela Merkel and global
capital, but to remove any restraint on them. The idea that the North American
Free Trade Area is anything we’d want to emulate in Europe seems to me to be
utterly extraordinary. It is not to vote to replace the deeply undemocratic British state, but to empower it.

That anger,
and the alienation it stems from, won’t go away whatever the result. But if we
are to address it properly, people need to secure some real collective power
over their lives once more. Of course that means radical democratisation of our
economy. But it also means that our political structures must become properly
democratic too. Today, the future of the EU lies in the hands of the peoples of
Britain. One day, perhaps we will be trusted with our own fates too?